"Blob" and FreeBSD

[Chuck Swiger]

Adam Stroud wrote:
> What about drivers that are not part of the ports collection?

That generally implies that the drivers are under such a proprietary license
term that the binary images cannot be redistributed:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/porters-handbook/porting-restrictions.html

> Nvidia I can understand because the code is not in the kernel to the best of my
> knowledge.

The nVidia driver runs in the kernel, which is perhaps arguably different from,
say a wireless card to which the firmware BLOB is uploaded.

> If you want *the* nvidia driver, you install the port.  What
> about drivers for something like raid controllers that would exist
> solely in the kernel?

Some RAID cards seem to want firmware uploads, too.  I'm not really sure what
the distinction you're drawing here is...?

Basicly, most people would like to see the open source version of the driver
support the devices at least adequately without using a proprietary driver, but
it's useful to have the option of supporting a proprietary driver from the
manufacturer if that works better, for those who want to use it.

-- 
-Chuck